Computer systems and a related method for enabling a prospective buyer to browse a vendor&#39;s website to purchase goods or services

ABSTRACT

Buyer, vendor and third party computer systems are disclosed together with a related method for enabling a prospective Buyer to browse a Vendor&#39;s website to purchase goods or services. According to one aspect of the present invention, the Buyer&#39;s computer system automatically extracts purchase information from the Vendor&#39;s website from which the Vendor can identify the Buyer&#39;s purchase. According to a further aspect of the present invention, the Buyer&#39;s computer system transmits, under control of the Buyer, confirmation to the Vendor that a third party has been instructed to pay the Vendor for the Buyer&#39;s purchase. In a yet further aspect of the present invention, a third party&#39;s computer system transmits to the Vendor confirmation of receipt of an instruction from a Buyer to pay a Vendor for goods or services.

This invention relates to computer systems and a related method for enabling a prospective Buyer to browse a Vendor's website to purchase goods or services.

U.S. patent application, Publication No. US2001/0034724 A1 (hereafter '724) discloses a system and related method of facilitating a secure financial transaction in which a financial institution of a buyer receives purchase data of a transaction from a transaction facilitator, which acts as an intermediary between the buyer and seller. Specifically, in activity A (see paragraphs 0013 and 0014 with reference to FIG. 1), the buyer having previously browsed a seller's website provides the transaction facilitator with the seller's name or the seller's website and selected product or general description of the item desired if a specific such item can not be found. Thereafter, the financial institution receives a request for payment for the transaction from the buyer and processes the transaction on behalf of the buyer.

According to a first aspect of the present invention, a computer system is provided which is configured to perform the steps of supporting a browser to enable a Buyer to browse a Vendor's website in order to select goods or services for purchase; automatically extracting purchase information from the Vendor's website from which the Vendor can identify the Buyer's purchase such as a purchase price and/or a Vendor purchase reference; and transmitting, under the control of the Buyer, an instruction to a third party, such as a Bank with which the Buyer has an account, to pay the Vendor for the Buyer's purchase, wherein the instruction includes the purchase information.

The purchase information may further include banking information of the Vendor needed for the third party to effect payment although such information would not be needed if the Vendor was previously known to the third party.

To facilitate extraction from the Vendors website, the purchase information may be tagged as such on the Vendor's website.

Also, the automated extraction of purchase information and the transmission of the instruction to the third party may be done by program code not provided by the Vendor, for example, by program code provided by the trusted third party.

Also provided in accordance with the first aspect of the present invention is a computer system configured to perform the step of hosting a Vendor's website which enables a Buyer to browse that website in order to select goods or services for purchase, wherein purchase information from which the Vendor can identify the Buyer's purchase is tagged as such on the Vendor's website to facilitate its automated extraction by the Buyer's browser.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, a computer system is provided which is configured to perform the steps of supporting a browser to enable a Buyer to browse a Vendor's website in order to select goods or services for purchase; extracting purchase information from the Vendor's website from which the Vendor can identify the Buyer's purchase; under control of the Buyer and ideally as a result of a single action by the Buyer, transmitting an instruction to a third party to pay the Vendor for the Buyer's purchase, wherein the instruction includes the purchase information, and confirmation to the Vendor that the third party has been so instructed.

Also provided in accordance with a second aspect of the present invention is a computer system configured to perform the steps of hosting a Vendor's website which enables a Buyer to browse that website in order to select goods or services for purchase; and instigating an action with respect to the purchase, such as reserving for the Buyer the goods or services selected, upon receipt of confirmation from the Buyer that a third party has been instructed to pay the Vendor for the Buyer's purchase.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, a computer system is provided which is configured to perform upon receiving an instruction from a Buyer to pay a Vendor for goods or services information the steps of transmitting a confirmation of receipt of the instruction to the Vendor, which may constitute a contract between either the Buyer or the third party and the Vendor, and paying or instructing payment to the Vendor in accordance with purchase information included in the instruction from which the Vendor can identify the Buyer's selection.

Also provided in accordance with the third aspect of the present invention is a computer system configured to perform the step of hosting a Vendors website which enables a Buyer to browse that website in order to select goods or services for purchase; and instigating an action with respect to the purchase, such as reserving for the Buyer the goods or services selected, upon receipt of confirmation from a third party of that third party having received an instruction from the Buyer to pay the Vendor for the Buyer's purchase.

According to a four aspect of the present invention, a method of enabling a Buyer to browse a Vendor's website in order to select goods or services for purchase is provided. In order, the method comprises the steps of initiating a session between the computer systems of a Buyer and the host of a Vendors website to enable the Buyer to browse and select goods or services for purchase; at the Buyer's computer system, extracting purchase information from the Vendors website from which the Vendor can identify the Buyer's purchase; at the Buyer's computer system, transmitting, under the control of the Buyer, an instruction to the computer system of a third party to pay the Vendor for the Buyer's purchase, wherein the instruction includes the purchase information; at the third party's computer system and in accordance with purchase information, either (i) effecting payment or future payment to the Vendor or the Vendor's Bank or (ii) contracting to pay the Vendor or the Vendor's Bank; and terminating the session between the computer systems of the Buyer and the Vendor. Such a method may be further characterised as claimed in claims 20 to 33.

The present invention will now be described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying figures in which:

FIG. 1 depicts the computer systems of a Buyer, the Buyer's Bank, a Vendor and the Vendors Bank, each connected to the Internet;

FIG. 2 is a message sequence diagram illustrating the interaction between the computer systems of FIG. 1; and

FIG. 3 is an illustration of a screen layout of the Buyers computer system of FIG. 1.

The computer systems of a Buyer, the Buyer's Bank, a Vendor and the Vendors Bank are each depicted in FIG. 1 connected to the Internet. Using the Buyer's computer system, the Buyer is able to browse the Vendor's website which is hosted on the Vendors computer in order to purchase goods or services. FIG. 2 is a signal sequence diagram illustrating the interaction between the computer systems of FIG. 1 as follows:

Step (1) Shopping.

Using the Buyers computer system, the Buyer browses the Vendors website and selects good for purchase. For the purposes of describing the best mode of the invention, a fictitious scenario is hereafter portrayed in which of the Buyer is one of the co-inventors, the Vendor is the Philips Online Staff Shop which in reality does not exist and the Vendor's Bank is the Bank of East Grinstead which similarly does not exist.

The Buyer uses a browser modified by program code provided by the Bank. As shown in FIG. 3, the browser contains conventional browser elements including:

-   -   a title bar including minimise, maximise and close window         controls     -   a tool bar with back, forward, stop, refresh and home commands     -   an address bar in which an url of the website currently being         accessed is displayed, and     -   a browser window in which the Philips Online Staff Shop is being         accessed and, in particular, the Buyer's virtual shopping basket         in to which the Buyer has placed two Philip's products for         purchase

In addition, for the purpose of implementing the present invention, the browser has novel elements including:

-   -   a second window titled “SafePay” which provides the Buyer with         an interface to trusted program code, provided by the Buyer's         Bank, which co-operates with the browser (often termed a         plug-in) and its operation is independent from information and         program code (such as an Java applet) downloaded by the Buyer's         browser from the Vendor's website. The SafePay window interface         and trusted program code enables the Buyer to instruct the         Buyer's Bank to pay the Vendor as will be described in more         detail below, and     -   an additional “SafePay” control on the title bar which toggles         the appearance of the SafePay window

Step (2) Purchase Information

Having selected goods for purchase and a mode of delivery and entered a delivery address, the Buyer is then required to pay for the goods. In the browser window, the Buyer is shown to have a choice between convention Internet based Credit Card payment and Giro transfer, that is a direct Bank account to Bank account transfer: Upon selecting the Giro tab, the Buyer is presented with purchase information which is tagged as such and which both the Buyer requires to pay the Vendor and the Vendor requires to relate such payment to the Buyer's purchase. The purchase information includes the name of the Vendor “Philips Staff Shop”, the sort code “12-34-56” and account number “87654321” of the Vendors Bank, the Vendor's invoice number and the Vendor's email address.

Step (3) Instruction to Pay.

As previously stated, the SafePay window provides the Buyer with an interface to trusted program code which enables the Buyer to instruct the Buyer's Bank to pay the Vendor. In order to transfer the purchase information, the Vendor clicks the Acquire button on the SafePay window whereupon the trusted program code scans the Browser window for tagged purchase information and automatically copies any such tagged purchase information to the SafePay window. The Buyer may also insert his own Statement reference with which to identify the debit from the Buyer's account.

To proceed with the purchase, the Buyer clicks the Pay button which instigates the creation of a message incorporating the tagged purchase information previously copied to the SafePay window, and transmission of that message to the Vendor's Bank.

Step (4) Confirmation that Instruction to Pay Sent

Having instructed the Buyer's Bank to pay the Vendor, the Buyer transmits to the Vendor confirmation of the instruction to the Bank to pay the Vendor being sent. This can done manually by the user clicking the Payment Instructed button on the Browser window or, if the button the tagged as such and the browser is so configured, arrange for a click on Pay to automatically instigated a click on Payment Instructed in the Browser Window. Upon receipt of confirmation, the vendor may update their website to reflect this (not shown).

Step (5) Validate & Step (6) Confirmation to Buyer that Instruction to Pay Received

Upon receiving the Instruction to Pay, the Buyer's Bank will validate the Buyer's request, for example by analysing digital signatures to ensure that the Buyer was indeed the sender and also by checking that sufficient funds are available in the Buyer's account. Confirmation that instruction to pay has been received and optionally validated is sent to the Buyer.

Step (7) Reserve Goods.

Upon receiving confirmation from the Buyer's that the Buyer has instructed the Buyer's Bank to pay the Vendor, the Vendor reserves the goods for the Buyer.

Step (8) Confirmation to Buyer that Instruction to Pay Received

Prior to making the Bank transfer, the Buyer's Bank may confirm to the Vendor that the Buyer has instructed the Buyer's Bank to pay the Vendor. This confirmation may form a contractual obligation on the Buyer and/or Buyer's Bank to pay the Vendor. The confirmation includes purchase information which the Vendor requires the confirmation to the Buyer's purchase. In step (7), the Vendor reserves the goods for the Buyer only after confirmation from the Buyer's that the Buyer has instructed the Buyer's Bank to pay the Vendor, however, such reservation (step 7′) may alternatively be made only after the Buyer's Bank has confirmed to the Vendor that the Buyer has instructed the Buyer's Bank to pay the Vendor.

Step (9) Bank Transfer

Using the purchase information, the Buyer's Bank transfers money to the Vendor's Bank and accompanying payment is purchase information which, once forwarded from the Vendor's Bank to the Vendor, enables the Vendor to relate the payment to the Buyer's purchase. As an alternative to payment, it is conceivable that an inter-Bank promise of money could be made whereby the Vendor's Bank can be confident of receiving the money at some time in the near future.

Step (10) Statement

The Vendor's Bank reports completion of the bank transfer (or promise thereof) from the Buyer's Bank to the Vendor.

Step (11) Despatch Goods & Step (13).

Upon receiving confirmation from the Vendor's Bank that the Vendors account has been credited by the Buyer, the Vendor confirms to the Buyer that payment has been received and despatches the goods to the Buyer.

Step (12)

The Buyer terminates the session by logging of the vendor's website either by informing the Vendor of the termination and the Buyer's browser being directed to say the Vendor's home page, or by unilateral termination say where the Vendor selects another website to browse.

In the above described example, the Vendor's website is hosted on a computer system of the vendor, however, it will be appreciated that a third party may host the vendor's website. Similarly, the computer systems of the Buyer's and Vendor's Banks could be owned and operated by a third party on the Banks, and in particular, where such a third party may operate on behalf of several banks.

Also, tagging data for extraction from a browser could be readily achieved by using conventional Extensible Mark-up Language (XML) or the like, XML being which is a universal format for structured documents and data on the Web. Alternatively, a dedicated tagging protocol could be formulated and adopted.

As an alternative to express tagging in the source, information on the Vendor's website could be tagged graphically, say by placing an icon or series of icons adjacent the information on the Vendor's website which is needed by the Buyer to pay the vendor and needed by the Vendor to match payment to the Buyer's purchase. If this were the case, extraction of the information would require scanning for such graphical tags.

Whilst the above embodiment describes the Buyer having a between convention Internet based Credit Card payment and Giro transfer using “Safe Pay”, credit card payment could have been used in a method according to the present invention in which the third party is a credit card company instead or as well as a Bank and where the held by the Buyer is a credit card account.

The invention is described in the context of computers systems connected across the Internet, however, it will be appreciated that the invention will be equally applicable to other WANs, LANs or other type of network.

From reading the present disclosure, other modifications will be apparent to persons skilled in the art. Such modifications may involve other features which are already known in the design and use of computer systems and component parts thereof and which may be used instead of or in addition to features already described herein. Although claims have been formulated in this application to particular combinations of features, it should be understood that the scope of the disclosure of the present application also includes any novel feature or any novel combination of features disclosed herein either explicitly or implicitly or any generalisation of one or more of those features which would be obvious to persons skilled in the art, whether or not it relates to the same invention as presently claimed in any claim and whether or not it mitigates any or all of the same technical problems as does the present invention. The applicants hereby give notice that new claims may be formulated to such features and/or combinations of such features during the prosecution of the present application or of any further application derived therefrom. 

1. A computer system configured to perform the steps of: supporting a browser to enable a Buyer to browse a Vendor's website in order to select goods or services for purchase; automatically extracting purchase information from the Vendor's website from which the Vendor can identify the Buyer's purchase; and transmitting, under the control of the Buyer, an instruction to a third party to pay the Vendor for the Buyer's purchase, wherein the instruction includes the purchase information.
 2. A computer system according to claim 1 wherein the purchase information includes a purchase price and/or a Vendor purchase reference.
 3. A computer system according to claim 1 or 2 wherein the purchase information further include banking information of the Vendor needed for the third party to effect payment.
 4. A computer system according to any preceding claim wherein the purchase information is tagged as such on the Vendor's website.
 5. A computer system according to any preceding claim wherein the automated extraction of purchase information from the Vendor's website and the transmission of the instruction to the third party is done by program code not provided by the Vendor.
 6. A computer system according to claim 4 wherein the automated extraction of purchase information from the Vendor's website and the transmission of the instruction to the third party is done by program code provided by the third party.
 7. A computer system according to preceding claim wherein the third party is a Bank with which the Buyer has an account.
 8. A computer system configured to perform the step of: hosting a Vendor's website which enables a Buyer to browse that website in order to select goods or services for purchase, wherein purchase information from which the Vendor can identify the Buyer's purchase is tagged as such on the Vendor's website to facilitate its automated extraction by the Buyer's browser.
 9. A computer system according to claim 8 wherein the purchase information includes a purchase price and/or a Vendor purchase reference.
 10. A computer system according to claim 8 or claim 9 wherein the purchase information further includes banking information of the Vendor needed for the third party to effect payment.
 11. A computer system configured to perform the steps of: supporting a browser to enable a Buyer to browse a Vendor's website in order to select goods or services for purchase; extracting purchase information from the Vendor's website from which the Vendor can identify the Buyer's purchase; and transmitting, under control of the Buyer, an instruction to a third party to pay the Vendor for the Buyer's purchase, wherein the instruction includes the purchase information; and transmitting, under control of the Buyer, confirmation to the Vendor that the third party has been so instructed.
 12. A computer system according to claim 1 1 wherein the instruction to the third party and the confirmation to the Vendor that the third party has been so instructed are transmitted as a result of a single action by the Buyer.
 13. A computer system configured to perform the step of: hosting a Vendor's website which enables a Buyer to browse that website in order to select goods or services for purchase; and instigating an action with respect to the purchase upon receipt of confirmation from the Buyer that a third party has been instructed to pay the Vendor for the Buyer's purchase.
 14. A computer system according to claim 13 wherein the action instigated upon receipt of confirmation from the Buyer is to reserve for the Buyer the goods or services selected for purchase.
 15. A computer system configured to perform upon receiving an instruction from a Buyer to pay a Vendor for goods or services information the steps of: transmitting a confirmation of receipt of the instruction to the Vendor; and paying or instructing payment to the Vendor in accordance with purchase information included in the instruction from which the Vendor can identify the Buyer's selection.
 16. A computer system according to claim 15 wherein the transmission of the confirmation of receipt of the instruction constitutes a contract between either the Buyer or the third party and the Vendor.
 17. A computer system configured to perform the step of: hosting a Vendor's website which enables a Buyer to browse that website in order to select goods or services for purchase instigating an action with respect to the purchase upon receipt of confirmation from a third party of that third party having received an instruction from the Buyer to pay the Vendor for the Buyer's purchase.
 18. A computer system according to claim 17 wherein the action instigated upon receipt of confirmation from the Buyer is to reserve for the Buyer the goods or services selected for purchase.
 19. A method of enabling a Buyer to browse a Vendor's website in order to select goods or services for purchase comprising, in order, the steps of: initiating a session between the computer systems of a Buyer and the host of a Vendor's website to enable the Buyer to browse and select goods or services for purchase; at the Buyer's computer system, extracting purchase information from the Vendor's website from which the Vendor can identify the Buyer's purchase; and at the Buyer's computer system, transmitting, under the control of the Buyer, an instruction to the computer system of a third party to pay the Vendor for the Buyer's purchase, wherein the instruction includes the purchase information. at the third party's computer system and in accordance with purchase information, either (i) effecting payment or future payment to the Vendor or the Vendor's Bank or (ii) contracting to pay the Vendor or the Vendor's Bank; and terminating the session between the computer systems of the Buyer and the Vendor.
 20. A method according to claim 19 wherein the purchase information includes a purchase price and/or a Vendor purchase reference.
 21. A method according to claim 19 or 20 wherein the purchase information further includes banking information of the Vendor needed for the third party to effect payment;
 22. A method according to any of claims 19 to 21 wherein the purchase information is tagged as such on the Vendor's website.
 23. A method according to any of claims 19 to 22 wherein the extraction of purchase information from the Vendor's website is automated and done along with the transmission of the instruction to the third party by program code not provided by the Vendor.
 24. A method according to claim 23 wherein the program code is provided by the third party.
 25. A method according to any of claims 19 to 24 wherein the third party is a Bank with which the Buyer has an account.
 26. A method according to any of claims 19 to 25 further comprising the step of, at the Buyer's computer system, transmitting, under the control of the Buyer, confirmation to the Vendor that the third party has been so instructed.
 27. A method according to claim 26 wherein the instruction to the third party and the confirmation to the Vendor that the third party has been so instructed are transmitted as a result of a single action by the Buyer.
 28. A method according to claim 26 or 27 further comprising the step of the Vendor instigating an action with respect to the purchase upon receipt of confirmation from the Buyer that a third party has been instructed to pay the Vendor for the Buyer's purchase.
 29. A method according to claim 28 wherein the action instigated is to reserve for the Buyer the goods or services selected for purchase.
 30. A method according to any claims 19 to 25 further the step of, at the third party's computer system, transmitting a confirmation of receipt of the instruction to the Vendor.
 31. A method according to claim 30 wherein the transmission of the confirmation of receipt of the instruction constitutes a contract between either the Buyer or the third party and the Vendor.
 32. A method according to claim 30 or 31 further comprising the step of the Vendor instigating an action with respect to the purchase upon receipt of confirmation from a third party of that third party having received an instruction from the Buyer to pay the Vendor for the Buyer's purchase
 33. A method according to claim 32 wherein the action instigated is to reserve for the Buyer the goods or services selected for purchase. 